Be Mindful, Any Dragon May Breathe Fire
by DragonLover4Life
Summary: Yona has a small accident when practicing archery one night leading Hak to discover that she may be able to spit fire and foul words when provoked after all ;)


It was dark out when Yona got up and left her tent to attend to her usually nightly archery practice, and yet she couldn't seem to get her mind to clear from the clouds of worry and anxiety that tormented her these last few days.

It wasn't much of a surprise then when not too long after she started, her practice was cut short as a sharp stinging pain swept through the index finger of her left hand.

"SHIT! Shit shit shit! That hurts way more than it frickin should! Gods be damned!" Yona yelped before continuing to mutter more curses under her breath as she hopped around in circles for a moment whilst holding her finger in pain.

"Princess! Are you alright?" Hak asked her, concern in his voice as he emerged from behind the foliage of a few bushes before crossing over the clearing to check the hand that she now had cradled to her chest.

"Hak? Where did you –I thought you were asleep!" she replied, faced scrunched up in both confusion and pain.

"I was until I heard arrows thumping into wood and figured I should probably check you were alright only to hear you swearing like a sailor and apparently hurt! Now show me your hand, what did you even manage to do?!"

"Nothing! It was just a stupid mistake, I'm fine!"

Hak raised an eyebrow at her.

"We both know right now that's a load of crap, now give me your hand."

Reluctantly, she carefully gave him her hand to let him see the damage.

"How did you manage to slit your finger this badly? You're lucky you didn't hit bone," Hak muttered to himself as continued to check her for any more injuries.

"I was shooting at the tree and forgot to aim with just the arrowhead and pointed with my finger so the fletching on the arrow caught it as I released. . ." she mumbled, looking anywhere but his face, "I already know It was a stupid mistake because I wasn't focusing on what I was doing. It won't happen again, so you don't have to fuss," she explained, attempting to pacify him.

Unfortunately, it didn't quite meet the mark in that regard as Hak was still looking anything but pacified with that answer and instead still looked wrought with concern.

"I taught you to practice aiming with your finger when the bow wasn't notched with an arrow. Not when you have an arrow ready, otherwise things like this can happen. Now that I know that's how you managed to cut it you should consider yourself lucky that you didn't loose your whole finger tip making mistakes like that," he said giving her a hard look. "What's got you so distracted that you lost your focus enough to do something like this? You've become quite the accomplished archer, so this is unlike you," he continued.

"Talk to me."

Yona considered it for a moment before sighing and walking over to sit on a nearby stump, holding her finger again to try and stop the bleeding.

"I'll tell you if you can help me clean and wrap this up. It's a little hard to do one handed and everyone had such a long day I don't want to wake anyone else up and make a fuss," she said, now looking tired and a bit distant.

Hak didn't waste any time and made quick work of grabbing the medical supplies including some alcohol to clean disinfect and some bandages. Once he had everything, he headed back over to where Yona was sitting and sat down on the grass in front of her.

"Give me your hand, but be ready, this will probably sting pretty bad," he warned soaking one end of the bandage in the alcohol. Nodding, she clenched her teeth and looked away but still let out a hiss in pain once the alcohol touched the slit skin.

"Sorry, but we don't want it getting infected," he said, dabbing gently away at the open wound and getting a better look at it, "I think this might actually need stitching up before we wrap it. Will you be ok?"

"Ya, I'll be fine. Just do whatever it is you need to do," she said in a clipped tone, still clenching her teeth.

At this Hak smiled a bit. "Well one thing I could never fault you for it your ability to put on a brave face. I've seen soldiers put up more fuss over needing stitches than you have over any of this."

Yona managed a small smile in return even as he began stitching her finger closed.

"You know," he continued "I'm surprised this managed to cause you so much pain, seeing as you've had worse before now."

"Ya well, when my back got hurt I had more than a little adrenaline in my system to keep me from noticing how much it hurt," she countered "Right now I'm feeling the severe lack of it I guess."

"What were you worrying over that got you so distracted, Princess? Don't forget you said you'd give me an explanation for that too," he said once he finished tying off the last stitch as she sighed again before beginning.

"It's just. . . well I guess I just keep having all these doubts about what it is that I'm doing. With everyone's help we've all come so far and helped a lot of people along the way, but. . . is it enough? Are we doing enough? I know there's still so much I don't know about this kingdom and so much that has fallen into near ruin under my father's rule. I know that as this country's Princess I have a responsibility towards fixing these problems and helping the citizens that need it but. . . well, I just don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what else I should be doing, and it makes me feel so _helpless_. Something that I promised myself I would never allow myself to be again. . ." she tapered off.

As she spoke, Hak finished bandaging her finger. When she finished though, it was his turn to sigh as he looked up at her, her eyes now finally teary, not at the pain of her finger but at her own frustrations.

Slowly and gently, he reached for her other hand so as to get her to look at him as he held both of her hands in his.

"Princess, you have helped villages get back on their feet, helped a child return home when he was alone and in danger. Princess, you have helped to stop _wars_ from _devastating_ the citizens who live there –On both sides might I add."

He tugged her wrists down more to get her to look at him as he tried to catch her eye as she looked away.

"You are doing more for this kingdom than anyone could ever hope to ask of you and still you strive to do more. You have to understand that those intentions alone, the fact that you care that much that it troubles you as bad as it does, only speaks to prove how much of a strong and amazing person you are. You have shown all of us, time and time again, that you are anything but helpless, but that doesn't mean you have to refuse help. It does not make you weak to allow others to support you, and it does not make you weak to do only as much as you humanly can. Princess, you have to remember that sometimes looking after yourself first is ok, because if you don't look after yourself then you won't be able to help others like you want to. And most importantly, no one wants to see you try and carry the weight of the world on your shoulders if it means hurting yourself. Not even those who are hurting, themselves. _We_ don't want to see you hurting or getting hurt over any of this!" he said, gesturing to the camp down behind them.

"You have to know all this," Hak whispered, still trying to get her to meet his eyes.

She sniffled a few times before giving in and meeting his gaze as she tried to keep any tears from falling.

"I know, and I don't want you guys to all worry over me, it's just. . . I don't want to let anyone down. Don't want to let this kingdom down."

"And you aren't!" he assured her, pulling her hands closer to rest against his chest where his heart lay.

"You are doing anything but that! You have no idea how proud I am at everything you do, how far you've come and how determined you are to move forward but reincarnation of Hiryuu or not, you're still only one person. You have to look after yourself or at least allow us to look after you when you won't," he said smirking a little at the last bit.

Yona only kept her eyes locked with his as she remained silent for the moment before leaning forward and burying her face in his neck as she hugged him.

At first, he was frozen stiff, unsure whether that was a good sign or not that she was ok, until he heard her say, muffled against his neck "Thank you, Hak" as she went limp against him, clearly exhausted from the pain and worry that had strained on her. So, he simply hugged her back, leaning his head against hers as he told her "For you Princess? Anything" as they sat there in the dark quiet of the forest that night.

"Although I must ask one thing of you," he added in after a moment.

"What is it?" she sniffled sitting back up to look at him again and hear what he had to say.

"Where in the word did you learn to curse like that?" he asked face a mixture of utter bewilderment and amusement as he tried to keep a straight face. It didn't last long however, despite his best efforts as the Princess herself broke into a fit of giggles.

"Seriously! I'm genuinely curious! Or did you have more lessons as a Princess back at the castle than simple etiquette and dancing that I was unaware of?" he continued, now laughing himself even as he tried to quell her own fit of amusement.

When she finally managed to catch her breath again, after many attempts to draw a straight face which only lead to more bursts of laughter, she managed to get out a reply.

"Well you're half right. I did learn most of it while at the castle."

"You're kidding me! Where?" Hak asked now dying to know just how his Princess had learned to have such a foul mouth.

"Often times when I'd wait around for you to finish training the soldiers, I would over hear some of the things they had to say either in regard to having their asses kicked and handed to them by a certain someone and their distaste for it, or at the very least moaning about their sore backsides," she replied now sending a cheeky little grin his way.

"Well, I shouldn't be too surprised then should I. After all, at least you learned it in context," he said, now chuckling again. "And the rest? You said you only learned most of it from the castle?"

"Yun," she said simply and they both burst out laughing again, Yona nearly falling off her perch on the stump in her fit this time around.

When they had finally calmed down, Hak helped her grab and carry her archery equipment back to camp as she followed at his side.

"Well, at least my hand should probably be fine enough by tomorrow to pick up practice again. They do say laughter is the best medicine after all," she said casually as he set her stuff down by their other bags of supplies.

"Nice try there, Princess" he replied, turning around and ruffling her hair as he smiled fondly down at her "No practice until those stiches are ready to come out. You hear me?" he said sternly looking her dead in the eye.

"Fine, fine. I won't practice for now," she said waving her hand and brushing off the look he gave her, already turning around to head back to her tent but he grabbed her shoulder before she could take more than a step.

"Promise me. Promise me that you'll take a break and look after yourself until that hand has healed properly."

Without turning around, she gently held the hand that gripped her shoulder in her good hand and said solemnly, "I promise you Hak, as long as you can promise me the same. Don't think that I don't know how hypocritical some of your words tonight have been, but I'll let you off as long as we're clear this works both ways."

"After all," she said in a voice so quiet it was near a whisper "We're a team, aren't we?"

"That we are. So, I guess we have a deal then," He replied just as solemnly as he gave her shoulder a final squeeze.

And with that she looked over her shoulder and smiled at him in the moonlight before giving his hand on her shoulder a quick kiss and jogging over to her tent to get some sleep for the night, leaving Hak standing alone, hand still hovering in the air.

After a moment or so, he shook it off and looked down at the hand she had kissed. He could still feel the warmth of her lips' touch, however brief it had been.

"What am I going to do with you Princess?" he sighed even as his smile returned, and he went off to grab some more firewood while he was still up.

Gods knew he wouldn't be able to get a good night's sleep now anyway.

{*****}

Not a very long one but I was fond of this idea all the same and hope that some of you get a kick out of it. 😊

Comments and reviews of any kind are always much welcome and appreciated!


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